200 Animal Species Discovered in Papua New Guinea

October 07, 2010

Scientists with Conservation International[1] have discovered 200 species in the remote Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea[2], including 24 frog species and 100 insect species that have never been described before in scientific literature.

"They tell us how little we still know about the world," Conservation International research team leader Stephen Richards said. "There's a lot of concern, quite rightly, about biodiversity loss and climate change and the impacts on biodiversity and what biodiversity means to us. ... Then we do projects like this and we discover, 'Hey — we don't even know what biodiversity is out there.'"

Among the notable finds are a green katydid with pink eyes; a thumbnail-sized frog, part of a group of frogs thought to only live in the Solomon Islands; and a mouse with a white-tipped tail that is believed to represent an entirely new genus.